Vero Appoints Steve Youngs As Development Director

Vero Software has appointed Steve Youngs as Development Director.

He is responsible for managing the ongoing technical development of all Vero’s CAD/CAM brands which drive CNC machines cutting metal solids. Overseeing more than 100 development staff in eight offices across three continents, he is tasked with ensuring each brand’s twice-yearly release delivers large, high quality, new features on what he calls “this aggressive timescale.”

Working closely with Vero’s Strategic Product Director and Brand Managers, he analyses feedback from customers, sales channels and applications engineers, to provide features the market needs.

“We also consider market trends, new technological innovation and areas where we think we can provide a better solution for manufacturers. Also, by working with our colleagues in the wider Hexagon Group, we’re now able to offer solutions that encompass more than just CAD/CAM software.

“We pride ourselves on listening to all our customers and resellers. Through this approach we maintain our competitive advantage in the CAD/CAM software market and, in turn, help our customers maintain a competitive edge in their own marketplaces.”

Becoming part of Vero when the company acquired Machining Strategist in 2002, he ran the development office in Cambridge before moving to the Cheltenham head office three years later. He continued to run the Machining Strategist development team and also worked closely with the VISI development team until 2015 when he became Technical and Integration Manager for Vero’s CAD/CAM brands – a post he held until his appointment as Development Director.

His career highlights include developing Machining Strategist into one of the first 64-bit and multi-threaded CAM applications on the market, and working with academic partners to help them gain their PhDs. “And more recently, aligning our development teams to deliver high quality releases twice a year has been particularly rewarding.”

He intends to increase the pace of developing existing products to improve customers’ productivity even further. “These are exciting times for the CAD/CAM/CAE market. l can foresee further consolidation within the industry, and with new manufacturing methods, and increasingly complex CNC machines, new technology will need to be delivered at ever-increasing speed.”